Linden shares her first album through her personal and mystical garden with Descent From Paradise. Review of this sublime, magical pop-rock.
DESCENT FROM PARADISE – LINDEN
The album has a concept: each track is associated with a Tarot Card, a Major Arcana, and calls upon our inner magick. The Fool welcomes us at the gates of paradise. Porch of Paradise is moving together the lightness of the clouds with the heaviness of grief. And Linden’s delicate vocals keep invoking it as she slides into the cloth of the Great Priestess on Heavenly Sickening, along with blues guitars. The divine feminine of this card gets more intense and bleeds on The Man In The Garden. There, the Devil is changing the mood for the divine masculine, for vocals that are still fascinating, this time flowing along subtle and saturated orchestral instants.
The Succubus and The Incubus gets the card of The Lovers, and its atmosphere matches that beautiful energy. First, darker than before, the sharp guitars snug into the piano and the bright vocals perfectly. The balance melts the genres and genders, and the priestess becomes Moon. She represents the emancipating The Ghost in Bridal Lace, with its resistible dancing blues-jazz undertones. Change then sweeps in with Nursed by Death, and the nameless Arcana – enigmatic and surprising, the track’s drums are also warm. Hermit Warning is, of course, the Hermit, is gentle and takes its time, contemplative and aware of the world around in each note of the omnipotent piano.
The sun sets on Watch The Sun Reverse as it unties some links in an atmosphere between dream and nightmare. With a strong attack from the drums, the composition is gripping and nerve-wracking, but never as sinister as Witching Hour. Here, the tower rises as tall as it can, dominating and chaotic, between Western and jazz. I am Virgo ends this spiritual journey with the card of the World, bright. It’s all very intense, and that’s when Linden goes back to the Fool and closes Descent from Paradise, ready to start a new cycle. And with all this, I’ll happily follow her next magnetic inner journey.
